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February 9, 2010

At Last, Relaxed

My week’s been shifted around by Rowls becasue I’m doing so much better healthwise. So I’ve got three hard workouts this week, rather than two. Monday was the 2’1′ fartlek, today was 2×10′ tempo with Jemma, and Saturday will be 8x1k efforts by time (also with Jemma).

A strange thing happened on the tempo this morning. My cadence fell completely in line with Jemma’s.

In July, I was coming off a sore shin, training in London with the team. Rowls threw me in with Jemma on a tempo. She was prepping for Worlds (and me, nothing) so I ran whatever was appropriate for her. I was in way over my head, completely unfit, and my heart rate was way above hers. I remember us running side by side thinking how much longer her stride was than mine. I was chopping along rapidly and she flowed. I tried to mimic her stride to see if it would change my perceived effort, lengthening each step so that we landed in stride. Unfortunately, it made my heart spike even more and what’s worse, I couldn’t hold her stride for more than 30 seconds at a time.

Today, months later in a similar workout, our heart rates were matched, our breathing was identical, and our strides were perfectly in sync. We must have looked like mirror images. Training partners often do that…and I often wonder: did she shrink her stride or has mine changed from all the PT and drills? Is there a point where your strides get similar enough that you subliminally alter it to be a match? Is it some kind of social adaptation thing, like yawning right after someone you are talking to yawns?

Well, I must have changed quite a bit because I can’t stop thinking about how disparate we were in July compared to today. I’m thrilled to be opening up my stride again, finding my flow.

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